The Pope Is Dead
It has been an ignoble death, stretched out over these many months. From the endless teevee news diagrams of his feeding tube to that NY Press cover to all that Pope Watching at the hospital, it has not been a prime example of death with dignity. The Pope still breathes tonight, although he has reportedly received Last Rites.
As the Pope has lost the ability to speak for himself, the spokesmen at the Vatican have offered transparently ridiculous descriptions of a mute, bedridden pontiff directing the affairs of the Church through his Bishops and advisors. The truth is that the Catholic Church doesn’t need the Pope to continue operations. He’s mostly a figurehead. It is my dark belief that the Vatican has kept John Paul II alive only so long that he wouldn’t die on the same day as Terri Schiavo and have to share the covers of all those American tabloids. Instead he gets to die on April Fools Day. Much more appropriate.
As irrelevant as the Holy See is to the daily operations of the Catholic Church, he’s even more so to the beliefs of the vast majority of American Catholics. Don’t get me wrong. Catholics love the Pope. He’s such a cuddly old bigot. But a narrow-minded bigot he is. How many Catholics agree with the Church’s prejudice against gays? How many Catholics use birth control? Who actually listens to the Pope? (Heck, I wish more people would listen to his strong words against capital punishment!)
It reminds me of a funny joke from the BBC comedy, “The Young Ones,” in which two cops are idly discussing their weekend. One of the cops had spent the weekend meeting his girlfriend’s parents. The dinner went well, he reported, until he started criticizing the Pope. “That’s stupid,” his partner retorts, “You know she’s Catholic.” “Yeah,” he says, “but I didn’t know the Pope was.”
The anticipated passing of John Paul II is cause for real concern. Over the course of his two and a half decades in Rome, he has basically appointed all of the Bishops and Cardinals who currently serve the Church and who will choose his successor. Almost to a man, they are reactionary, arch-conservatives. While many of the world’s religions have been busy pursuing a narrowly conservative political agenda, the Catholic Church has mostly abstained from direct politicking. The next Pope might change all that.
Springtime for Hitler
“Downfall” is a genocide movie with an ostensibly happy ending: Hitler offs himself and the Nazi regime falls to the advancing Soviets. Made in Germany, the film provoked some controversy there for its humanizing portrait of Adolf Hitler. Swiss actor Bruno Ganz is mesmerizing and utterly convincing as Hitler as he slowly comes to grips with the end of his regime and his life. Still the film does not make him out to be a warm or attractive character, although Ganz does evoke some of the (waning) charisma of a man who convinced a nation to follow him into mass murder and world war and who inspired such insane loyalty from his top lieutenants that they follow him into the abyss and take their kids with them.
Rather, the film portrays a more personal monster who sends children into hopeless battle against Soviet tanks and demands that his generals never surrender, while he plots his own suicide.
The most devastating scenes in “Downfall” deal with the suffering of Berlin’s civilians, who must contend with both Allied bombs and marauding SS vigilantes lynching “deserters.” Ganz’ Hitler grumles “there are no civilians in a war like this.” Tragically, every army that has followed has agreed with that sentiment. For that brief moment, “Downfall” holds a mirror to a much more personal monster: all of us who are complicit in our nations’ war crimes.
Dan Hennessey Has Died
I was at a Save the Plaza rally when I heard the grim news that one of my former co-workers, Dan Hennessey, had died on Sunday morning. He was hit by a car near his home in Woodside. Apparently it was all over the news. The Daily News headlined the story, “Queens Grandpa Killed by Driver Fleeing Police.”
The driver was some jerk who was pulled over by a cop for talking on his cellphone while driving his obnoxious sports car. Rather than deal with a ticket, he sped away and killed an innocent old man.
Dan was 76 years old. He wasn’t in the best health, and he had left the job last spring in order to care for his wife, who was also ill. His wife, Margaret, survived him. “He was a good husband,” she said to the News. “He was just ready to enjoy life.”
Dan worked as a banquet bartender at the Palace hotel for many years. He served the union as the Shop Chairman in the hotel, the top shop steward with significant power to negotiate with management. After he retired from the hotel, the union asked him to join the staff in a part-time capacity. He was the “Officer of the Day,” the Business Agent who stayed in the office to deal with members who walked in with grievances and no appointment.
He was a colorful character in the office, well-liked and loud (louder than Alan Amalgamated!). He could be gruff with the members, but it came from working in the industry for so many years and having no tolerance for bullshit. Those of us who were kids hired by the union from outside the rank and file were counseled to take every member’s grievances seriously and to diligently investigate every crazy claim, while Dan could be heard throughout the hallways shouting, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT, MA’AM!” I can picture him right now, yelling that on the phone, his short sleeve shirt exposing his old school anchor tattoo from his days in the Navy. No one who worked with him will ever forget him.
Kitty
I’m haunted by Kitty Genovese, who was murdered 41 years ago, on March 13, 1964. The New York Times reported at the time:
For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.
The lede was slightly exaggerated but close enough to the truth to make the neighborhood notorious. You’ve probably read something about the case, and, if not, you can “Google it”. Kitty’s murder has been used as a touchstone or plot point in movies, books, teevee shows and even a famous comic book. It’s been tossed around like a football in various political debates and psychological theories. It’s easy to overlook the life of the young woman who died.
Although, I’d known about this crime since I was taught about it in high school, I, like many people, assumed that it took place in Manhattan, surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings. You really need to walk around Kew Gardens to realize how shocking it is, and surely was then, that such a crime could take place here. Kew Gardens is a neighborhood of small shops, single family houses and a scattered handful of apartment buildings that go no higher than six stories. People in the neighborhood have a “nodding” relationship with each other, if not always actual friendships.
I can imagine living in the neighborhood with Kitty, who was young, short, tomboyish, independent, tough, plucky and pretty cute, actually. I could imagine having a crush on her, and hoping to “bump into” her at the supermarket or the local bar. I can imagine the gut-wrenching hole she would leave in the neighborhood’s street scene.
Last year, being the 40th anniversary of the crime, caused many media outlets, including the Times, to revisit the old story and many of the surviving witnesses. A key part of the story was Kitty’s “roommate,” Mary Ann Zielonko, who had the grim task of identifying the body, and who faded from the original story. Emboldened, I guess, by 35 years of gay liberation and probably just sick-to-death of being white-washed from the story, Mary Ann finally came out as Kitty’s lover. It’s hard to believe that the portrait of Kitty Genovese has been so incomplete for so long. This begs many questions. Was the attack a hate crime? (The more chilling probability is that it was a completely random attack by a psycho-sexual serial killer). Did her neighbors know about her sexuality? (Could residents of Kew Gardens in 1964 wrap their brains around homosexuality?). Was this the reason no one called for help? (Could neighbors distinguish her cries from the typical bar fights at the Old Bailey?).
Forty-one years later, Kew Gardens residents understand better than most New Yorkers that we have an obligation to be our brother’s and sister’s keeper. The “Eyes” on the street will monitor lover’s spats, unaccompanied children, reckless drivers – and watch for the first sign of real trouble, often calling the police before that first sign. We’re trying to live down the Kitty Genovese experience. I don’t think it’s something we should try to forget. We should keep Kitty Genovese in our minds as we actively and consciously try to progress beyond big city alienation. It could have happened anywhere, but it did happen here.